The use of various forms of postage indicia, as may be printed directly on a mail item or upon label stock to be applied to a mail item, have been used for a number of years to show proof of payment for postal services with respect to the mail item. For example, traditional meter stamps are usually struck by a postage meter die using a fluorescent ink and displayed in the upper right hand corner of a face of the mail piece for shipping services proof of payment. The aforementioned fluorescent ink may, among other things, be used to “face” the mail item for automated processing. That is, automated equipment may use special lighting (e.g., ultraviolet light) to cause the postage indicia to fluoresce and thus identify the face of the mail item bearing the indicia as well as the orientation of that face, as may be useful in scanning for other information such as addressee and/or addressor information.
More recently, computer-based systems (e.g., general purpose personal computer systems) for generating and printing postage indicia in the form of an information based indicia (IBI), such as a two dimensional bar code encoding information from which the postage indicium may be verified as valid, have been used to show proof of payment for postal services. Because such IBI based postage indicia are generally printed using general purpose printer systems (e.g., consumer inkjet or laser printers), these postage indicia are often used in combination with a facing identification mark (FIM), such as may comprise a simple bar code which is often printed using fluorescent or phosphorescent ink, as may be printed with the postage indicia or otherwise present on the stock for use in facing the mail item for automated processing.
In order to provide reliable proof of payment, various techniques for verification of the postage indicia may be used. For example, the above mentioned traditional meter stamp postage indicia may utilize a postage meter die imparting a relatively difficult to reproduce image. This, coupled with the use of fluorescent ink which has only limited availability provides at least some level of visible verifiability of the postage indicia. The above mentioned postage indicia comprising IBI may be scanned using processor-based mail processing equipment to extract information encoded within the IBI A digital signature of this extracted information may be verified and/or particular information of this extracted information (e.g., addressee information, date information, etc.) may be analyzed to verify the postage indicia.
Although the foregoing postage indicia have been widely accepted for use in posting mail items in both personal and business use, their use is not without drawback. In particular, there are disadvantages both with respect to the postal service providers (e.g., the United States Postal Service (USPS)) and the users of those services (e.g., the mailers).
For example, of disadvantage to the postal service providers is the fact that the visual verification features of the traditional meter stamp postage indicia are becoming less reliable in the present world of image processing and reproduction capability. The IBI of the more modern postage indicia require particular scanning equipment that has not yet become ubiquitous in mail processing infrastructure.
Of disadvantage to the users of postal services, the use of traditional meters often requires the stocking and handling of specialized ink used in the fluorescent meter stamp impression. Moreover, when processing a number of mail items for posting several steps are often required in order to print address labels, apply address labels to the mail items, and print postage indicia, where printing the postage indicia may involve printing postage indicia upon label stock (particularly in the case of using general purpose personal computer systems for printing postage indicia) thus further requiring applying the postage indicia to the corresponding mail items.
In resent times, postal service providers have implemented other information based features, in addition to the aforementioned IBI, to facilitate the handling and processing of mail items. For example, the USPS has introduced the intelligent mail (IM) barcode (also referred to as one code solution and 4-state customer barcode (4CB, 4-CB, or USPS4CB), wherein the term “intelligent mail” refers to services offered by the USPS for domestic mail delivery, which effectively incorporates routing ZIP code and tracking information. The IM barcode is a 65-bar code which is placed in proximity to (e.g., above or below) the addressee information on the face of mail items in the United States. Because of the simple nature of the IM barcode and its use in routing and providing services by the USPS, scanning equipment capable of extracting information from IM barcodes has already been relatively widely deployed in mail processing infrastructure.